The field of integrated Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) including microfluidics, microelectronics and photonics offers a vast potential to realize low cost, efficient and reliable means of sensing. This field has recently attracted remarkable attention due to its potential of implementing novel applications in numerous areas. Investigation into the use of MEMS technology to produce microdevices for biological applications, namely, Bio MicroElectro Mechanical Systems (BioMEMS) has increased recently in the hopes of developing opportunities and commercializing devices in the areas of medicine, life sciences, bio-security and Point-Of-Care (POC) diagnosis and drug delivery.
Device portability is considered to be an important feature for in-situ medical detection applications. Miniaturization of a biosensor is also considered to be important for ease of device handling, utilizing smaller sample volumes and assisting in rapid or simple biological detection leading to high throughput.
In the past decade, BioMEMS applications in the area of microfluidics have received enormous attention due to a) the availability of suitable fabricating methodologies to make individual and/or integrated devices, b) the quest for less expensive and portable devices to perform simple and quick analysis and c) the potential of micro-systems for use in performing fundamental studies of physical, chemical and biological processes in micro-level test samples. A majority of work carried out on microfluidic devices has involved the biomedical field, especially in the life sciences and diagnostics domain—POC analysis, Micro Total Analysis Systems (μTAS), DNA and proteomic chips, protein chips and cell chips. Applications include separation of proteins and amino acids, high throughput DNA analysis, cell culture and handling, clinical diagnostics and immunoassays.